The St. Simons Island Light is a lighthouse in Georgia, United States, on the southern tip of Saint Simons Island, marking the entrance into St. Simons Sound. It uses a 1000-watt electric light to transmit a beam visible for 23 miles (37 kilometers).
The original St. Simons Island lighthouse was built in 1810, which was a 75-foot-tall (23 m) early federal octagonal lighthouse topped by a 10-foot (3.0 m) oil-burning lamp. During the American Civil War, U.S. military forces employed a Naval blockade of the coast. An invasion by U.S. troops in 1862 forced Confederate soldiers to abandon the area. The retreating troops destroyed the lighthouse to prevent it from being an aid to the navigation of U.S. warships.
The U.S. government built a replacement for the original lighthouse to the west of the first. It is a 104-foot (32 m) structure completed in 1872 and was outfitted with a third-order, biconvex Fresnel lens. A cast iron spiral stairway with 129 steps leads to the top. In 1876 the lighthouse was overhauled. In 1934 the kerosene-burning lamp was replaced by a 1000-watt electrical light. In 1939 the lighthouse was placed under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard. About 1953 the lighthouse was fully automated. The tower underwent restoration in 1989-91 and again in 1997-98. In 2004, ownership of the lighthouse was transferred to the Coastal Georgia Historical Society under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
As of 2008 the lighthouse is still in use. The lighthouse keeper's residence has been turned into a museum and the public can go up to the top of the lighthouse.
Having an operational Fresnel lens is a relative rarity. The Fresnel lens is still operative, being one of only 70 such lenses that remain operational in the United States. Sixteen of those are in use on the Great Lakes of which eight are in Michigan.
The light is picturesque, and is the subject of paintings and other artistic renderings.